Warthur As the 1970s faded away and the 1980s hove into view, the rise of punk and metal meant that hard rock sort of fell between two stools - too hard for people who wanted something softer, but no longer hard enough to satisfy audiences who had heard more aggressive and challenging sounds now flooding the airwaves.

Whilst Styx's Pieces of Eight was a defiant bit of hard rock with prog and pop touches which bucked the commercial trends of the era, Styx found their AOR blend dialling back on the hardness, turning into a form of pop rock with occasional prog influences and a good deal of synthesiser texture from Dennis DeYoung. The synths here certainly date the album a bit - too modern in their sounds to quite fit the mellotrons-and-Moogs era of the early to mid 1970s, but sufficiently dated that they still sound a little cheesy, but then again Styx's guileless, unironic embrace of mild cheesiness is perhaps part of their charm. Cornerstone might see them abandoning the balance of influences that made The Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight so strong, but I can't say I dislike it.

aglasshouse "Cornerstone" is the ninth studio album by the american progressive/hard rock band, STYX.

After their second huge hit-producing album "Pieces of Eight", STYX released the followup album, "Cornerstone", in 1979. It can immediately be assumed that the follow album to a triple-platinum certified record is usually not as up to scratch as the former. Many times, a band loses their cool after taking their success too lightly, and releases a complete piece of garbage. In the case of "Cornerstone", it's a mix.

Let's start off with the worst. The ballads. Dennis DeYoung made two of them on the album, one of which became the only US #1 single on the charts. 'First Time' is a power-ballad that was meant to become the second single on the album, but instead was replaced with 'Borrowed Time' as a single release. Sadly, the song got a meager #63 on the charts. 'Babe' is the #1 single hit ballad that I was talking about before. Unlike 'First Time', 'Babe' is just a lame, poppy ballad that sounds like some soul artist wrote and sang it and not STYX. Both ballads are unremarkable, and in my opinion, un-listenable.

Synth is a huge annoyance on this album. Songs like 'Why Me', 'First Time' and 'Lights', have over-whelming synthesizer constantly blasting you with every note. Not enjoyable by any means.

Asides from the bad tracks, there are songs on the album that are enjoyable, like 'Boat On A River', which uses a menacing acoustic sound with nice light lyrics to make for an awesome mix. There are driving tracks, like 'Eddie' and 'Borrowed Time', of which have a nice constant rocking tone.

I would say that this album is totally worth picking up.

Go give it a listen.